journal

I keep this black and white picture of my wife and I in a journal I use to pray. Often it’s a journal I use to question God, and if I read back through it’s pages, it’s a journal I’ve used to yell at God and sometimes even accuse God.

There are blank pages too. Pages where I’ve tried to pray, and I’ve come up with nothing. There are pages where I’ve drawn my feelings or lack of, and pages where I’ve babbled out phrases that I didn’t really understand or words that I didn’t mean.
But in the front there’s this picture.
It’s from the fall before I was married. Amy and I are standing in front of this old oak tree that’s massive trunk is wider than both of us together. I’m standing behind Amy with my arms wrapped around her shoulders and we are both smiling. You might look at that picture and say something like, “oh that’s nice,” or “that’s a big tree.” If you turn the page, and look just behind that picture that’s where you will read pages of chaos, and frustration, and questions, and confusion.
I didn’t put that picture there in the front to remind me to smile even when things inside might not feel like smiling, nor did I put that picture there to create this façade that might paint a picture over the realities of that which follow. I keep that picture in the front, to remind me that in the midst of everything; confusion or joy, frustration or happiness, there’s peace.
You may have heard God described as a rock. There’s this book called Psalms where poets describe God as being steadfast. There’s even a story where Jesus is sleeping in this boat in the midst of a huge storm. The other people on the boat freak out thinking that the storm is going to capsize the boat and they are all going to die. Jesus wakes up and with a word, the seas are stilled and the storm vanishes.
I keep that picture in the front of my journal to remind me that there’s peace. There’s this stillness. There’s this sense of calm. When I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around whatever just happened, or something that is about to happen, there’s peace. There’s something I can trust in. There’s something that doesn’t fade, or pass away, or change. As I cry out, or yell, or beat my fists against the chest of God, he hears me, and he sees me and somehow he breathes peace into the midst of my storm. That’s why I keep that picture in the front of my journal.